‘I cannot take the other culture with a spoon and eat it and get it inside me.’

‘We thought we were coming to a free country, and here is this guy telling us how we should be dressed.’

‘I don’t miss being in a place where everything is war.’

‘True integration only comes when both sides are willing to move.’

The storied city of Weimar, Germany (population 65,000), absorbed 900 refugees in a year. Our journalists spent months on the ground examining integration from all sides.

Introduction:Welcome to Weimar

Germany settled the migrants with classic efficiency and astonishing speed. But on the person-to-person level where integration really happens, there were staggering cultural headwinds.

By
RICK LYMAN
and
MELISSA EDDY

Germany has led the way in numbers of refugees and in programs to support them. Above, refugees and Germans chatting after watching a soccer match.CreditMauricio Lima for The New York Times

The German woman, herself an immigrant from Ghana, jerked forward with such force her hoop earrings swung like pendulums. “The whole thing is to have power over women,” declared Mona Fofie, 24, speaking of the Muslim head covering called hijab.

The Syrian man, one of 900 asylum-seekers welcomed in Weimar, Germany, was no less upset. “Have you asked them?” demanded Anas Alkarri, 28. “I think you will find it is their choice to wear the hijab.”

She pressed on: “I have heard that women can’t worship in the mosque. Is this true?”

He scoffed: “Of course they can worship in the mosque. This is a misconception. There is a separate section in the back for them.”

The German woman stifled a gasp. “A separate section? Oh my God.”

So it went in a four-month cultural crash course pairing Weimar residents with refugees, and in informal interactions around the city and the rest of Germany, as roughly one million people arrived in galvanic waves from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. The rapid influx shook European social structures, accelerated a rise in right-wing nationalism and saddled social welfare systems with the complex challenge of absorbing so many desperate wanderers at once.

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Map of Weimar, Germany

Hamburg

Berlin

GERMANY

Cologne

Weimar

Frankfurt

Munich

100 miles

Germany led the way in numbers of refugees and in programs to support them, as Chancellor Angela Merkel called for constituents to open their communities and, not incidentally, provide work in a nation where 658,000 jobs went unfilled last year.

The German government spent 14.5 billion euros — about $15 billion — on refugees in 2016, and nearly as much is earmarked for this year. About $1.5 billion of 2016’s expenditures paid for reception centers, registration and housing during the asylum application process; $2.2 billion went to integration efforts like the cultural crash course run by the European Youth Education Center in Weimar.

With the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany party polling as the third-strongest ahead of federal elections in September, the nation’s Interior Ministry released figures this week showing that the number of criminal suspects classified as immigrants had surged more than 50 percent. Nearly 175,000 newcomers to Germany were charged last year, according to the data, accounting for 8.6 percent of all crimes, up from 5.7 percent in 2015, increasing the pressure on Ms. Merkel’s government to step up deportations of illegal or criminal immigrants.

“Those who commit serious offenses here forfeit their right to stay here,” warned Thomas de Maizière, the interior minister.

In Weimar, a storied center of culture and politics that bridges the nation’s old East-West divide, Ralf Kirsten, the police chief, said many of the crimes involving Muslim newcomers consisted of disputes among themselves and frustrations over living in communal housing, not attacks on Germans.

The city settled the migrants with classic German efficiency and astonishing speed by all measurable criteria: They were housed, clothed and fed, the children enrolled in local schools and the adults in government-paid classes to learn the basics of the language, laws and customs.

They had health care, first through a new refugee department in the city government and then, once they were granted official refugee status, through the social service channels used by all Germans. That status also meant their monthly stipends increased to €409 ($434) from €216 ($230) for single adults, with a young family of three receiving €605 ($643).

Migrants to Germany Are Young and Mostly Male

Male

Female

Age

0-4

4-6

6-11

11-16

16-18

18-25

25-30

30-35

35-40

40-45

45-50

50-55

55-60

60-65

65+

Age and gender

distribution

Asylum applicants

Germans

20%

15

10

5

5

10

15

Share of the total population

Age and

gender

distribution

Male

Female

Age

0-4

4-6

6-11

11-16

16-18

18-25

25-30

30-35

35-40

40-45

45-50

50-55

55-60

60-65

65+

Asylum applicants

Germans

20%

15

10

5

5

10

15

Share of the total population

Note: Age and gender distribution of asylum applicants in 2015 and 2016 compared with Germany’s total population.

But on the person-to-person level where integration really happens, there are staggering cultural headwinds. On issues like gender, sexuality, religion in the public sphere and even the seemingly mundane matter of punctuality, the differences may take generations to overcome.

A city of 65,000, Weimar sits in a region of gentle hills and poor but picturesque villages, the narrow Ilm River flowing through the shadows of old palaces and sprawling parks.

Two of Germany’s dominant literary figures, Goethe and Schiller, lived here. The Weimar Republic, which rose and fell between two world wars, was formed here, as was the influential 20th-century design movement Bauhaus. From September 2015 until February 2016, asylum-seekers like Anas arrived weekly by the busload. They crammed into a dormitory on Weimar’s western edge and eventually fanned out to apartments of their own to start new chapters.

Besides the housing and government-provided food or stipends, Weimar’s refugees found a plethora of student, religious and social service groups providing help navigating the German bureaucracy and offering activities and events to pull them into the life of the city.

Dozens of refugees we met said they had been largely welcomed — or ignored — though many recounted moments of public hostility and even physical aggression. As the months passed, we watched them wandering the cobbled streets of Weimar’s old city, pushing bicycles, pausing at kebab shops, playing table soccer with shaggy university students.

“I think this process of integration is going to be more difficult than people realize,” Anas said one day. “And I think it will come as a surprise to many of the Germans, but it is going to be just as hard for them as it is for us.”

‘The exceptions are more than the rule.’

‘They just hadn’t known how to behave, and once it was explained to them, it became all right.’

‘It’s nice when people make you feel you are one of them. But I have not given up on my own country. I can be both.’

‘I don’t want people thinking that I have lost myself here in Germany.’

The storied city of Weimar, Germany (population 65,000), absorbed 900 refugees in a year. Our journalists spent months on the ground examining integration from all sides.

Chapter I:Integration Is a Two-Way Street

Refugees and the Germans trying to help them resettle struggle through debates over homosexuality, volunteer fatigue and the complexities of language and bureaucracy.

By
RICK LYMAN

Refugees and German citizens attended an integration seminar last year in Weimar.CreditMauricio Lima for The New York Times

MARGRET AURIN, 28, a German student who volunteered in the resettlement effort

BASHAR AL-SULAIMAN, 20, a student and soccer enthusiast from Syria

SARAH ZDUN, 26, a German social worker and her Syrian boyfriend, OMAR, 28

Stray a few blocks beyond Weimar’s historic center and you are in a working-class sprawl of chipped pavement, weedy courtyards and occasional bursts of indecipherable graffiti. That is where Anas, his wife, Aya, and their young son, Zaid, settled — in a dim top-floor apartment in one of the better-maintained buildings among hundreds of white-walled housing blocks.

Like others, he hoped to take advantage of free language lessons and quickly land a job. But also like others, he found German difficult and was frustrated by the bureaucratic hurdles and internships most newcomers must clear to hold a job in Germany.

“They teach you the rules, and then they teach you the exceptions, and the exceptions are more than the rule,” he said of the language classes he received from the city and local university students. “The dog is a he, but the table is a she. They have no logic.”

Refugees are required to take roughly 700 hours of classes in German language and cultural orientation in exchange for benefits. At the end, if they pass a language test, they are eligible to hold a job and remain in the country permanently.

In the first six months of 2016 — the most recent available figures — 278,404 refugees were enrolled in integration courses across the country, 434 of them in and around Weimar. Nearly 64 percent nationwide passed the test needed to continue studying or pursue vocational training.

Anas was an accountant in Syria but gave up on that career in Weimar. “The training here is clearly superior,” he said. “Given the choice, even I would hire a German over a Syrian.”

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‘The owner of this flat, the German lady, she leave everything here for us, even the kitchen tools.’

‘When I was in Syria, my home was my apartment, where my parents are.’

‘One room for five persons, and we have to share everything.’

‘This is the place that I’ve seen my son grow up.’

The storied city of Weimar, Germany (population 65,000), absorbed 900 refugees in a year. Our journalists spent months on the ground examining integration from all sides.

Chapter II:When Do Four Walls Become a Home?

We interviewed refugees via 360-degree video inside their new bedrooms, living rooms and kitchens to explore the meaning of this most precious commodity.

By
KASSIE BRACKEN

360-video feature: An inside look at where Syrian refugees are making their homes in Weimar, Germany.Credit

— In This Story —

OMAR, 28, a Syrian who declined to give his last name to protect relatives, and his girlfriend, SARAH ZDUN, 26, a German social worker

MOHAMED KHANOM, 45, a Syrian man who separated from his wife after landing in Germany

BASHAR AL-SULAIMAN, 20, a student from Syria sharing an apartment with seven Germans

MOAAZZAZA ALMUSTAFA, 19, a Syrian living with her family — in one room

HINDRIN OMAR SHARIF, 34, a Syrian living with her husband and children

The refugees brought little with them: cellphones, of course; some clothes or toys; photos of Syria — of home. They spent weeks or months in a cramped dormitory that they considered a refugee camp on the edge of Weimar, then slowly fanned out to apartments across the city with relatives, other refugees they met along the way and, occasionally, Germans.

Inside these rooms, we glimpsed their new lives, still under construction. There were tiny kitchens and empty shelves, but also meticulously arranged mementos and neatly stacked blankets.

When do four walls become a home?

“You feel it inside your heart” is how Omar put it.

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‘It is my belief that this refugee situation will result in social conflict.’

‘Small things happen and you blame it on the refugees. They are handy scapegoats.’

‘I don’t think the refugees are disruptive, but you do come across people who do feel that way.’

‘People are afraid of what they do not know.’

The storied city of Weimar, Germany (population 65,000), absorbed 900 refugees in a year. Our journalists spent months on the ground examining integration from all sides.

Chapter III:Four German Friends on the Influx of Refugees

As refugees poured in, Weimar residents defended their cultural assumptions, reflected on history, questioned the economics and wondered about the future.

By
RICK LYMAN
and
MELISSA EDDY

Ina Schörnig at her boutique in Weimar. “True integration only comes when both sides are willing to move,” she said.CreditGordon Welters for The New York Times

STEFAN KRANZ, 55, a social worker and friend of Ina’s visiting her at the shop

CHRISTIANE PÖBEL, 55, another friend and an unemployed graphic designer

A FRIEND who spoke on the condition of anonymity because she did not want to be publicly connected with her comments about refugees.

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‘I don’t feel safe going on the streets alone.’

‘In Germany, the law prevails over religion.’

‘We are not happy with just sitting around at home with nothing to do.’

‘The best way to learn a language is by taking a job.’

The storied city of Weimar, Germany (population 65,000), absorbed 900 refugees in a year. Our journalists spent months on the ground examining integration from all sides.

Chapter IV:Three Syrian Sisters, No Men and a World of New Gender Mores

The Ibrahim sisters, who came to Weimar without husbands, fathers or brothers, face an extra layer of challenges in adapting to German social customs.

By
MELISSA EDDY

A Teatime & Heart meeting in Weimar. The weekly gatherings were created to offer a safe space for Syrian women to meet and talk with their German peers.CreditLaura Boushnak for The New York Times

— In This Story —

THE IBRAHIM SISTERS:

HAIFAA, 30, a widowed mother of two and now matriarch of the group

MAHDIYA, 28, who believes that Chancellor Angela Merkel invited her to come to Germany

SCHIREEN, 23, who hoped to continue her education in Germany, but struggles with the language

The Ibrahim sisters share a two-bedroom apartment and an unspoken understanding of the need to stick together. Unlike most of the roughly 95,000 refugee women who poured into Germany in 2015, these three came without husbands, fathers or brothers.

Haifaa, the oldest, had the idea first: After her husband was killed in Syria’s civil war, she sought a safe future for her children. Schireen, the youngest, was game to go along in the hope of continuing an education that had been stunted by the fighting. Mahdiya, the middle sister, worried about the cost and length of the journey, but remarks made by Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany persuaded her to make the trek.

In the 17 months since they arrived in Weimar, the sisters have attended language classes and navigated their new city side by side. They and other refugee women spoke about an extra layer of challenges in adapting to German social customs, including how to organize playdates for their children and have platonic friendships with men, something unusual in the conservative Muslim society they came from.